The Spinster Book - Myrtle Reed

Image source, and online textThere has been a bit of a theme on SiaB this year, hasn't there?  Lots of books for, and about, unmarried women - because of the research I've been doing.  You'll be hearing more about metamorphosis and talking animals later in the year, so get ready for that... Anyway, The Spinster Book by Myrtle Reed is the earliest of the books I've read this year - published, as it was, in 1901.  Myrtle Reed was only my age (26) which is perhaps too young to be penning anything with 'spinster' in the title - and, indeed, she...

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Hearing Marilynne Robinson

I mentioned on Twitter a while ago that I'd attended a talk by Marilynne Robinson at Blackwell's (in Oxford) and promised to write about it.  And now, finally, I am!  I've waited for too long to write this, so I'm having to rely on my dodgy memory...Last year I did hear Marilynne Robinson give a lecture, and wrote about how star-struck I was then (and you also told me all the exciting authors you'd met).  Back then she spoke about philosophy and politics, and I didn't understand the title of the lecture let alone anything that followed. ...

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Five From The Archive (no.1)

Whilst I was away from blogging, I came up with a fun idea (which you're welcome to borrow, if you like it)...  One of the anomalies I've noticed about blogging is that we all put a lot of time and effort into reviews - creating really great, extensive resources about incredible books - and yet these reviews are only likely to be read for a week or so, and then disappear into the hazy mists of the blog archive.  I thought it would be fun, and maybe useful, to highlight and group past books.Since I've now celebrated my fifth blogging anniversary,...

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Spinster of this Parish - W.B. Maxwell

I'm back!  Did you miss me?  I suspect a lot of people barely noticed, since I wasn't away for all that long - but I usually try to post at least five times a week, so it felt like a lengthy holiday for me.  Sometimes a break is needed to keep blogging fresh for me - and my week-and-a-bit was enough to get me raring for more.  Let's kick things off with a review to fill the 1922 slot on A Century of Books, eh? It was in this article by Sarah Waters (an introduction to Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes) that I first heard about Spinster...

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Back next week...

Sorry to be absent for a while - since I signed off my last post with a cold, you might think that I'm suffering in some Swiss sanatorium (a la Katherine Mansfield) but... no, I just went away from blogging for a couple of days, and then decided that it would be nice to have a few more too.  So, I'll be back next week - hope you're all having lovely wee...

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A Trip to See Vanessa and Virginia

They weren't in, though.My friends Shauna and Lauren (who were on the master's course I did 2008/9) and I have been intending to take a trip to Sussex for about three years, and on Saturday we finally organised ourselves and did it.  Our itinerary?  Monk's House and Charleston - being the homes of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, and Vanessa Bell et al respectively.  When I say 'et al' that includes luminaries as various as David Garnett, Duncan Grant, and John Maynard Keynes.We took the train to Lewes (which is lovely and where, ahem, I bought...

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The Times piece (photographed)

I wrote yesterday's very quick post on my phone at Charleston, of all places, without actually having a copy of The Times myself at that point.  More on Monk's House and Charleston soon - but today I thought I'd pop up photos of my quotation in The Times for those of you who don't get copies.  I was so excited to be asked to contribute!This is what was printed (I'd like to point out that, when I wrote it, it didn't end on a preposition!):Simon Thomas, a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford and author of the Stuck-in-a-Book blog at Stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com,...

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The Times, p.60...

...has me quoted on it today, talking about charity bookshops! Check it out...

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Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

By the time you read this, I'll either be in London or Sussex - a couple of my friends and I are off to Charleston and Monk's House (the homes of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf respectively) for a literary jaunt.  At least that's the plan - right now I feel deathly with one of my oh-so-common colds.  But I am determined to enjoy myself!  I am equally determined to tell you about a book, a link, and a blog post... so make yourself comfortable, and enjoy.1.) The book -  I can't remember how I found this title, but it's been waiting in...

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Moominpappa at Sea - Tove Jansson

You probably know that I love and adore Tove Jansson.  She is, indeed, one of my all-time favourite writers, and the only author whose books I eagerly await.  (Yes, she's dead, but they're being steadily translated - a newly translated collection of short stories coming soon from Sort Of Books!)  Until now, though, I hadn't read any of the Moomin books for which she is best known.  Aware of this, Margaret Szedenits very kindly gave me a copy of Moominpappa at Sea (1965) which is actually the final book to feature the Moomin...

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National Flash Fiction Day

As the clock has just ticked past midnight, I'm afraid you've just missed National Flash Fiction Day...If case you don't know, flash fiction is, essentially, very short fiction.  There's no accepted definition or stated length, but usually it's fewer than 1000 words.  And it's something the internet gets on board with!My friend and housemate Mel co-runs a British flash fiction site called The Pygmy Giant, and they've had a competition in honour of the day, inviting flash fiction with the theme 'flash' - and today announced a very worthy winner....

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The Outsider - Albert Camus

Somehow, through some sort of mental osmosis, I find that most avid readers know the broad outline of classics long before they've read them.  I certainly found this with Rebecca, To Kill A Mockingbird, Jane Eyre etc.  The simple explanation, of course, is that conversations, articles, blog posts and films have, over the years, given us this foreknowledge.  So it is something of a rare joy to read a classic without any prior understanding of the contents.  That was the experience I had with Albert Camus's The Outsider (1942),...

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At Mrs. Lippincote's - Elizabeth Taylor

I intended to read At Mrs. Lippincote's (1945) back in January, in its rightful place for Elizabeth Taylor Centenary year, but somehow it didn't happen... and then I went to a wonderful Celebration of Elizabeth Taylor in Reading, and one of the book groups was discussing this title.  I would have written about the day in Reading properly (where I got to meet lots of lovely ladies from the LibraryThing Virago group) but it happened just before Muriel Spark Reading Week, so I had other things to take blog prominence!Well, better late than never -...

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Song for a Sunday

I re-watched the film Nine a couple of days ago.  It got middling-to-poor reviews, and it's true that the storytelling isn't great, but the cast certainly is.  Unbelievably, in a film starring two of my favourites - Dame Judi Dench (showing how great she looks with a flapper bob) and Nicole Kidman - it was Marion Cotillard who stole the show.  That woman is simply brilliant.  And she sings what is easily my favourite song from the film: My Husband Makes Movies.  I love it so much that I can cope with the word 'movie' for once.  Here she ...

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Two competitions...

I've turned over the Weekend Miscellany to competitions - one of which could win you all sorts of bookish goodies from Glasses Direct, and the other of which could see you choosing Hesperus Press's next reprint.  On with the show...I'm copying and pasting the Glasses Direct competition:1.) To celebrate Glasses Direct's new blog, the online prescription glasses retailer has launched the GD Book Worm Club, an online competition that encourages book readers, whether avid or occasional, to post their reviews so that others can read up on their recommendations...

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Books I Borrowed...

There are a few books I've borrowed from friends and libraries which have now been returned, and so I'm going to give each one a paragraph or two, instead of a proper review.  Partly so I can include them on my Century of Books list, but partly because it's fun to do things differently sometimes.  Of course, it's entirely possible that I'll get carried away, and write far too much... well, here are the four books, in date order.  Apologies for the accidental misquotation in the sketch today... I only noticed afterwards! Canon in Residence...

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Somerset: The Books

Whilst down here in Somerset, I have been mostly adoring the cat, but also jaunting off to various places - including, yesterday, sunny Lyme Regis......and whilst out and about I have, of course, been buying some books.  Being the gent that I am, I thought I'd share my spoils with you - asking the usual questions: have you read them, and what do you think?Letters - Sylvia Townsend WarnerI had a copy out of the library, but I was pleased to find one myself, for the chapter of my thesis I'm currently writing.Look Back With Gratitude - Dodie SmithYou might...

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More Women Than Men - Ivy Compton-Burnett

When I wrote about Pamela Hansford Johnson's pamphlet on Ivy Compton-Burnett, I mentioned that it had made me keen to read more of my beloved Dame Ivy's work soon.  It didn't take me long - at Easter I delved through my collection of Ivy Compton-Burnett novels to find one to fill a gap in A Century of Books, and opted (because I love its dryly prosaic title) for More Women Than Men (1933). If I dared, I would try an Ivy Compton-Burnett Reading Week, but I don't think it work - partly because people often seem intimidated by her, but also because...

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